Find out who the Phillies just acquired from Seattle

The Phillies acquired first baseman Mike Sweeney from the Seattle Mariners for a player to be named or cash considerations, GM Ruben Amaro Jr. said Wednesday.

The addition of Sweeney means the Phillies will have to remove someone from the 25-man roster when he reports.

Sweeney, 37, was batting .263 with six home runs and 18 RBIs in 30 games for the Mariners this season, including three starts at first base. With runners in scoring position, he was hitting .313 (10-32).

One concern, though, is that Sweeney, who bats right-handed, has had two stints on the disabled list this season with back inflammation/spasms. Most recently, he was on a rehabilitation assignment with Triple-A Tacoma, where, in 12 games, he hit .366 (15-41) with two home runs and nine RBIs.

A five-time American League All-Star, Sweeney has hit at least 20 home runs in six seasons, including 29 in back-to-back seasons (2000-01). He has made 570 career starts at first base.

This move could have been made because the Phillies think Ryan Howard (left ankle sprain) will be out beyond 15 days. And/or the team could also be hoping he can provide some pop off the bench, especially being that he’s right-handed and especially after seeing Jayson Werth go 0-for-5 with four strikeouts from the cleanup spot on Tuesday night.

Originally selected by the Kansas City Royals in the 10th round of the 1991 draft, Sweeney is a career .298 hitter with 213 home runs and 901 RBIs in 1,428 games for the Royals (1995-2007), the Oakland A’s (2008) and Seattle (2009-10). With runners in scoring in position, he has batted .328 in his career. In 27 career games against the National League East Division, Sweeney has hit .320.

Andy tracy is the laziest POS that there is in baseball. Like someone else said in this message board, there is a raeson he's as old as he is and still in AAA. He's a bum no question about it. If you've ever been to an iron pigs game and saw him pop a ball up and not even run it out, not charge a bunt when playing first base you'd know where I was coming from. He is a bad excuse for a baseball player and that's no lie!!!

"He's a bum no question about it. If you've ever been to an iron pigs game and saw him pop a ball up and not even run it out, not charge a bunt when playing first base you'd know where I was coming from."

Yeah yupp I've been to pretty much all of the Pigs games since the beginning and you're a fool.

Andy runs out everything and is ten times, I know it's not saying much, the defensive first baseman that Howard is.

If he could hit off-speed pitching he would have been a ML player for years now.

It has nothing to do with his effort or commitment.

The Phillies are keeping him around because when he does decide to retire he will be a coach somewhere in their minor league system. They wouldn’t be doing that if he was such a horrible player like you imply.

Get a clue dude, a player can’t last playing professional baseball if he was always doggin’ it.

"Andy Tracy is garbage. As someone else said, there's a reason a guy that age is playing AAA"

The reason why he wasn’t called up, as already mentioned by the more literate amongst us, is that he is not on the 40 man roster and would have to clear waivers for the Phillies to be able to move him.

If the Phillies tried to do that another team would make a waiver claim for Tracy and then the Phillies would either have to pull him back to AAA or risk losing him.

Perchance you haven’t checked the stats and watched any games, but Mayberry is not exactly smoking up AAA himself compared to Tracy. He got the call simply because with him being on the 40 man roster it was the quickest move the Phils could make personnel wise until they could get another body. (Which they did with Sweeney)

Mayberry has less of a chance at any ML success than Tracy does/did.

Like I said, five years from now when Tracy is either coaching or managing in the minors and has a job in Baseball, check out where the other 95% of the people who are currently on Pigs roster will be. I’ll give you a hint, not in Baseball.

You can have all the facts or "clues" that you want. It doesn't make Tracy any less lazy or any better of a first baseman. I can tell you by what I have seen with my own two eyes how lazy of a baseball player he is. I would never want him as a player or coach for that matter in my organization (hypothetically speaking). I could care less about the ins and outs of why he wasn't called up. I just think he is a lazy bum and I am sure I am not alone...

wow, are we really arguing over Tracy on the phillies blog? there's an ironpigs blog for all of this. honestly, there are people that work for the phillies that are MUCH more qualified to make these decisions than we all are. there's a reason he got passed over. just because the aaa team is here in allentown doesn't mean that you're a gm if you go to every pigs game. sorry...